TBWA\\RAAD has always been renowned for the work they do in Lebanon and the region. This time though, with newly-appointed Chief Creative Officer Walid Kanaan at the helm, two new ideas were given an entirely fangled twist, which got over half a million people talking.

By promoting a renowned household dishwashing liquid, Pril, the agency wanted to set the brand apart and so decided to literally take matters to the next level. Going behind the scenes, ArabAd talked to the man in charge for his take on the birth of an idea that will linger in the minds of those who saw it for quite some time. “Pril has spent years communicating their everlasting promise that one drop is powerful enough to wash a set of dishes. Today, other competing brands have started to say the same, so we decided to take the promise to a level our consumers can actually feel with their own hands,” Kanaan explained.

True to that promise, the team came up with an ingenious idea that put the brand to the ultimate test and in turn delivered on that challenge. “That was when the idea of creating the first ever ‘One-Drop Bottle’ came to be. It is an exact replica of the Pril bottle reduced to the size of a thumbnail,” Kanaan said with a smile.

The marketing campaign received tremendous praise on social media, won a Cannes Lion award and attracted the attention of anyone who came across it. “The bottle is not intended for mass production but for promotional purposes and is currently being sampled in supermarkets,” he concluded.

Building on that momentum, the agency went ahead and took on a challenge that has proven elusive to anyone who dared address it. This time round though, the proposed solution was as brilliant as it was simple, alarmingly so!

In tackling the issue of speeding, which is the leading cause of accidents in Lebanon, car company Rymco, exclusive dealership of numerous brands, wanted to employ the pre-existing security setting that sounds the alarm when a vehicle exceeds a certain speed and replace it with something quite surprising.

“Reckless drivers listen to no one - not even speed alarms - and continue to accelerate every chance they get without a care in the world. RYMCO and Nissan wanted them to slow down, so the company created the Warning Voice - a feature that plays personalised voice messages recorded by the loved ones of reckless drivers, which is activated when they start speeding,” Kanaan said.

To achieve that goal, the company contacted family members and recorded their personalised messages to their loved ones. Next, he continued, “Drivers with a history of accidents and excessive speeding were invited to a test drive, unaware of what was to come. Once they started to speed, the regular alarm switched to an unexpected voice message by their loved ones urging them to slow down. In the first three days, the stunt went viral and reached more than 520 thousand views in a country with 1.5 million drivers. Subsequently, RYMCO/Nissan received hundreds of requests - mostly from parents - to implement the feature, while Nissan Global decided to adopt this innovation worldwide,” Kanaan concluded with a gaze.

Not only did the agency manage to resolve a debilitating problem, but also introduced and replaced an otherwise outdated feature with one that will change the way people drive, and in so doing, made the world, a better place!

About ArabAd

Launched in 1986, ArabAd is the first and oldest advertising and communications magazine catering to the MENA region.

Distinguished in its coverage of advertising, marketing, branding and everything in-between, ArabAd maintains a watchful eye on the pulse of this industry to bring the latest and greatest from the communication world.